How to get rid of bad habits and make your job easier? Stop exhausting yourself, wasting time and getting very tired. Good habits and skills stay with us for life.
“A clear timetable is the most powerful tool for overcoming obstacles,” says Greg McKeon, business coach and author of Essentialism. If you do not live according to the regime, then, probably, all the time you are distracted by something superfluous. In addition, you exhaust yourself and put in too much effort, even completing tasks that are familiar to you. Greg McKeon explains why regimens make work easier and how to replace bad habits with good ones.
Regularity eliminates unnecessary worries
Try to make your responsibilities part of your daily routine. This will help you get into autopilot mode soon. Your energy is precious, so is it worth wasting it on coming up with a new plan of action every day? Create your own routine that repeats from day to day or from week to week, and everything will go like clockwork.
There are many studies that support that routine makes hard work that much easier. According to one scientific theory, regularly repeated actions create new neural connections in the brain. And the more often you do something, the stronger the change. It is becoming easier for the brain to launch the connections that are responsible for a particular process.
Imagine that you have come across an unfamiliar word. At first, you find it difficult to remember it, and you think every time before inserting it into your speech. But if you regularly use this word in different contexts, then it will cease to cause confusion. Thanks to our brains, which are capable of adapting and changing, we become accustomed to repetitive actions.
But what about creativity?
The strict regime has many benefits. If you can turn your daily agonizing thoughts and efforts into unconscious actions, then your life will not become more monotonous. On the contrary, the brain will be able to use the freed up capacities and focus on something more interesting. You will do one work automatically, and over another, more important, you will begin to think more actively. The level of focus and efficiency will only increase from this.
Don't believe the stereotype that routine is the end of creativity and ingenuity. It all depends on how you organize yourself. If you arrange everything correctly, then the routine will not make your life boring and dull, but, on the contrary, will redistribute energy and direct it in the right direction.
Routine stimulates creativity, not kills it. After all, if you stop wasting energy on the daily solution of the same tasks, turn them into automatic actions, then you will save a lot of energy for other areas. By the way, many creative people adhere to a very strict regime that helps to clear their minds.
Unconscious decisions
The observations of scientists have shown that people unconsciously make forty percent of decisions. That is, they do not try to think about almost half of their actions. Two conclusions follow from this fact: good and bad. The good one: we can program ourselves into certain positive habits that will become second nature to us.
But on the other hand, if we make decisions unconsciously, then we can be distracted against our will by unnecessary things to us. Losing control over their decisions, people do not notice how they develop various bad habits, and do not even try to fight them. For example, many people check their emails before they wake up, or buy donuts every morning on their way to the office. Is it possible to eliminate bad habits and replace them with useful daily actions that will help you achieve your goals? Undoubtedly!
Looking for switches
Most people have habits that they want to get rid of. Some abuse junk food, others procrastinate constantly, and still others worry too much about anything. How can we resist this?
Research has shown that there are three components to every habit: stimulus, action, and reward. A stimulus is like a switch. It is with him that everything begins: the brain goes into automatic mode and chooses the usual way of action. The second stage is an emotional, physical, or mental response. And at the very end, you will receive a reward that convinces the brain to internalize this habit for a long time.
It turns out that if you want to give up bad habits, you should start not with actions, but with finding a switch that triggers an unwanted chain of actions. And when you find out - "tie" him to another way of behavior. For a person who buys high-calorie buns every night, a bakery on the way can be an incentive. He needs to connect this situation with another habit - for example, go to the store next to the bakery for salad. It won't be easy at first, but if you don't give up, then a neural connection will appear in the brain between the stimulus (the bakery) and the action (buying the salad).
How to create an incentive
Don't dwell on the incentives you already have. Create other switches to build good habits. For example, you want to fill out a personal diary every day, but you cannot accustom yourself to this. In the morning you think that you will describe all the events in the late afternoon, but in the evening you postpone filling out the diary until the morning, and then completely forget about your decision.
It turns out that it is enough to create an incentive forcing you to take notes every night at the same time. Take care of a signal that will remind you of the diary. For example, if you put your mobile phone on charge every day and this has already become a habit for you, then try placing the phone in your bag next to your diary. In the evening, taking out your mobile phone, you will pay attention to the diary. Over time, keeping records in a journal will become a natural and completely uncomplicated activity.
Where to start the morning
Always start your morning with the hardest thing. Create incentives for him. It can be anything: morning exercises, a cup of tea, an alarm clock - the main thing is that these signals immediately switch you to working mode and set you up for the most difficult task.
Heed the advice of Ray Zinn, founder of Micrel. He has been running the company for almost half a century. All these years, Ray Zinn adhered to a very strict regime. He wakes up at 5:30 (both on weekdays and weekends), does physical education for an hour, has breakfast at 7:30, and enters the office at 8:15. A family dinner is planned at 6:30 pm, and lights out at 10 pm. How does he manage to be at his best and effectively cope with all tasks? He argues that the point is in one simple rule: the day should start with the most difficult responsibilities. When this becomes a habit, it becomes much easier to live.
Alternate habits
Doing the same thing day after day at exactly the right time can get terribly boring. To avoid this, design different modes for different days of the week. This is exactly what Jack Dorsey, the creator of Twitter, does. Each of his days has a specific theme. Monday is for meetings and company management. Tuesday is dedicated to product development. Wednesday is dedicated to marketing, communications and development, while Thursday is dedicated to communication with developers and partners. Friday is the day of the company and its culture.
This routine helps keep calm in the midst of the chaos of a fast-growing startup. Every day, Dorsey focuses all of her efforts on one topic, rather than spraying it over several tasks. His work week always follows these rules, so it is easy for colleagues and partners to adapt to him.
Follow the steps one by one
Sometimes the idea of creating our own daily routine is so exciting that we want to have time to do several things at the same time. But to achieve big results, you need to start small. Change at least one thing in your daily or weekly routine first. When you are successful, he will push you further.
It won't be easy. Many bad habits are deeply ingrained in us or are associated with persistent emotions. Don't feel like you can snap your fingers and change them once and for all. It is not easy to acquire useful skills, but when you bring them to automaticity, it will be a major victory for you. Good habits and skills stay with us for life. Once you develop your own regime, you will soon realize that it is an inexhaustible source of benefits.
